Turkey’s embattled prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is struggling to hold
on to his position as his son became the latest high-profile figure named in
a widening corruption investigation

Mr Erdogan came out fighting after the loss of three ministers who decided to resign after their sons were detained in the investigation. He rejected calls, including from one of the ministers, for him to step down.

“If they try to aim at Tayyip Erdogan through this, they will be left empty-handed,” he told reporters on a flight back from a visit to Pakistan, referring to himself in the third person. “They know it and that’s why they are attacking the ministers.”

He confirmed that investigators were now looking at a charitable foundation, Service for Youth and Education Foundation of Turkey (TÜRGEV), of which his son, Bilal, sits on the management board. They are said to be looking at amendments to a construction plan for a building leased by the foundation - to a local Istanbul council - as student accommodation.

“That place is a student residence, not Bilal Erdogan’s hotel,” he said. “They want to reach me via TÜRGEV.”

The mayor of the council in question, from Mr Erdogan’s moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party, is among those who have been detained and questioned in the inquiry, though he has subsequently been released.

The corruption allegations have frozen much of the work of the government and of the police and judiciary. The latter are a stronghold of a former Islamist ally of Mr Erdogan’s, now bitter enemy - the US-based leader of a religious and educational charity, Fethullah Gulen.

Mr Erdogan has sacked a raft of senior police officers, allegedly in an attempt to stymie the investigation, and after the three ministers resigned on Wednesday carried out a wholesale cabinet reshuffle, bringing in loyalists including an interior minister from outside parliament.

The split at the heart of Turkey’s government could have serious international consequences, weakening a key ally of the opposition in neighbouring Syria in the run-up to peace talks.

It could also a knock-on effect for Iran, with whom Turkey has had ambiguous relations which Mr Erdogan previously tried to warm.

The corruption inquiry began with reports that an Iranian-born businessman with good connections in Turkey was using the state-own bank at the heart of the affair, Halkbank, to transfer gold and money to Tehran at a time when the country was having difficulty finding financing owing to international sanctions.

The inquiry then widened to other Halkbank-linked businesses.

Shoe-boxes stuffed full of cash worth millions of pounds found in the home of the chief executive have become the case’s Exhibit A.